The article places the environmental history on the map of historical research. It contains a problematised definition of environmental history, outlines its key determinants, describes its research issues and methodology, and analyses the question of the historical sources that are used by environmental historians. The article also reflects on the relationship between environmental history research and theoretical reflection, primarily from the field of post-human studies and postcolonial studies. It also considers the interdisciplinary potential of these in relation to the humanities as well as natural and earth sciences. The article also contains a review of the state of research on environmental history in the Polish historiography of the last five years.

This article examines the role of environmental human rights and the rights of nature in the era of the Anthropocene. The research question is whether the concept of the Anthropocene itself is a constructive remedy for the ecological destruction.
The United Nations General Assembly resolution acknowledging a universal human right to clean environment is a ground-breaking event in a long process of the creation of such a right. This article examines the status quo of this right at present, both generally and in regional human rights treaties, as well as in the relevant case law and literature. The rights of nature are also examined, as they have become a very topical issue in light of the recent decision of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which expressly grants such a right. The question which may be posed is whether the approach adopted by the Anthropocene – which treats all actors equally – reflects the reality. The Western (Global North) approaches to the destruction of the Earth are contested by the Global South. The fractured approaches (by both the Global South and the Global North) to the decline of the environment may render questionable the suitability of the Anthropocene paradigm.

In the interview, Dipesh Chakrabarty gives an insight into recent transformations of historical thinking and writing. He discusses various faces of recent democratisation of history, like the proliferation of environmental history and the decolonialisation perspective. He outlines the genealogy of the term “provincializing”, known from his notable work Provincializing Eu-rope. Finally, he elaborates on the emergence of “the planetary” (or “a planetary age”) and recalls the contributions of Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt on the conceptualisation of the issue.